W H McLeod

William Hewat McLeod (1932–2009), also known as Hew McLeod, was a New Zealand scholar whose research and publications helped establish Sikhism studies as a distinctive field outside India. He joined the Presbyterian church mission in late 1950s which sent him to Punjab, India. In the mid 1960s, he studied in the United Kingdom, where he earned a doctorate, and where his wife and he adopted a half-Punjabi girl. Thereafter he oft-visited India, researched and wrote extensively about Sikh scriptures, literature and history. He produced many books and essays on Sikh identity and the theology of Sikhism.

McLeod applied a rigorous historical methodology and critical textual approach to Sikh literature. He analyzed the Sikh Janamsakhis – texts on the lives, travels and miracles performed by Sikh Gurus. He stated that these were works of fiction, with hardly any reliable information and facts. Similarly, he studied the interaction of various Sikh sects and the evolution of the Sikh scriptures, thereby showing the complexity of Sikh society, theology and history.

McLeod had been presenting distorted and biased accounts of Sikhism in a number of books, which were more on a journalistic level rather than serious academic works. McLeod had gone to the extent of making what are called blasphemous and unethical attacks against the Sikhs.

His scholarly work frequently provoked controversy in the Sikh community. His work attracted hostility from Khalsa Sikh activists, who questioned his allegiance to Christianity and the consequent bias. McLeod was indignant over such uninformed criticism and the attack on his motives, and declared that he was not a Christian missionary but an agnostic–atheist.

McLeod was born and raised in a farming family near Feilding, in New Zealand's North Island. He met Margaret Wylie in Dunedin during his university studies, and they were married in May 1955.They had four children.

McLeod was educated at Nelson College from 1946 to 1950, and then at the University of Otago, Dunedin, where he earned a BA and then an MA in history, graduating in 1954.He then began theological studies and in 1958 joined the New Zealand Presbyterian church's mission to Punjab, India. At Kharar, in Punjab, he learned the local languages (Hindi and Punjabi) and taught English at the Christian Boys secondary school.

Later, he completed a PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 1965.

In 1990 he was awarded a DLit by the University of London, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1999.

• Sikhism (ISBN 0140252606)
• Sikhs and Sikhism (ISBN 0195647459)
• Sikhs of the Khalsa: A History of the Khalsa Rahit (ISBN 0195672216)
• The Sikhs: History, Religion, and Society (ISBN 0231068158)
• Who is a Sikh?: The Problem of Sikh Identity (ISBN 0198265484)
• Historical Dictionary of Sikhism (ISBN 0810850885)
• Essays in Sikh History, Tradition, and Society (ISBN 0195682742)
• Exploring Sikhism: Aspects of Sikh Identity, Culture, and Thought (ISBN 0195649028)
• Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion (ISBN 0198265212)
• Early Sikh Tradition a Study of the Janam Sakhis (ISBN 0198265328)
• The Evolution of the Sikh Community: Five Essays (ISBN 0198265298)
• The Sikhs of the Punjab (ISBN 0853621233)
• Popular Sikh Art (ISBN 0195627911)